1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a drawing apparatus and a drawing control method of a drawing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A nail printing apparatus for printing a desired nail design on a finger nail of a person has conventionally been known. An example of such a nail printing apparatus is disclosed in, for example, JP-T-2003-534083.
With such an apparatus, people can enjoy nail printing easily without going out to a nail salon.
Currently examined nail printing apparatuses include a plotter type drawing apparatus including a drawing tool (pen). In this apparatus, a pen nib is brought into direct contact with a surface of a drawing target and draws a design on the target.
When the plotter type drawing apparatus is employed as the nail printing apparatus, it is possible to use various kinds of ink such as ink including a pigment (coloring material) with a large particle diameter or lame, and sticky ink, which cannot be easily employed in the inkjet type apparatus. The plotter type drawing apparatus can eliminate a user's labor of applying “base coat (white foundation)”, “absorbing layer” and “top coat” and can provide the automatic nail printing as beautiful as the nail art offered at the nail salon.
In the case of using the plotter as the nail printing apparatus, some users may use the ink with various colors and types in accordance with the picture and need to have the apparatus loaded with a pen which is appropriate for the picture to draw.
In view of this, it is preferable that the type of pen loaded in the pen holder is detectable on the apparatus side and whether the appropriate type of pen is loaded or not can be checked before the start of drawing.
In the conventional plotters, however, the use of a plurality of kinds of pens is not expected and some plotters do not have the function of detecting the type of pen loaded in the pen holder. In such cases, the inappropriate pen is not detected, so that the nail printing may be failed.
Conventional methods of detecting the type of pen include, for example, a method of attaching a type identifying barcode to the pen and reading the barcode with a sensor, and a method of printing a type identifying mark or the like on the pen and reading the mark with a sensor.
Such methods, however, would increase the cost of pens because the pens need to have the barcode or the mark printed thereon. The cost of the plotter would also increase because the plotter needs to have the sensor.
In addition, in order to draw a minute picture using the plotter as the nail printing apparatus, it is necessary to control the position of the pen on the nail as precisely as possible.
In this perspective, in order to align the position of the pen accurately by a mechanical way, the pen attachment mechanism or the pen shape needs to have high accuracy, which would increase the cost of the apparatus and the pen. In addition, there are a change in the movement mechanism in the apparatus over time and a variation in the fabrication of pens, which are unavoidable factors.
For these reasons, even if the nail printing apparatus and the pen have high accuracy, the aforementioned factors may cause the displacement of the position of the pen on the nail from the desired position. When, for example, the picture contains different colors, the border between the different colors is deviated a little due to the above factor and the design is ruined. Thus, it is difficult to achieve the precise finishing.